Marriages are NOT made in heaven!!

Recently, while attending a relative’s wedding, I made this very fine observation. Everybody who went up the dais to wish the couple, invariably said, “Marriages are made in heaven.”  Very cliché indeed. How did this funny phrase originate, I wonder! Must have been the age-old gimmick of ‘Blame everything on the Gods’. A 5-year old must have been married off to some 40-year old by the parents. And when the poor girl must have suffered invariably, the parents must have had come up with this explanation. Dear child, since everything is so much pre-determined by the heavenly creatures, please suffer in silence. We, the parents, are innocent. We only followed the instructions pouring in straight from up above the world so high!

In the present times that we live in, your marriage is definitely made by YOU yourself. You may have chosen your partner or it may have been an alliance through family, it means nothing. As soon as you sign the dotted line, you enter a common zone. And if you wish to stay there, you have to work hard at it. I know it sounds very strange, but then do we not know that a stark and naked truth has always been unbelievable?

I am not denying the existence of love. Well, that magic potion is exactly what pulls you through when you hit a rough patch. Have you ever wondered why, at the end of a bitter argument, you feel miserable? When you sleep in the other room yet worry whether he has taken his medicines? When you are engrossed in the thoughts of how you committed the biggest mistake of your life by marrying him, and your thoughts end up with what to cook for dinner?? And, most importantly, what is it that makes you smile as you read this? You already know the answer!!

If you want to know what it means to work at your marital life, just ask yourself these basic questions. How many times have you resolved that you won’t nag him any more? How many times have you felt that you are not being a dutiful spouse? Don’t you sometimes feel he is this shuttle-cork being served between you and the mother-in-law? If you have nodded your head in a yes, bingo! You’ve hit the nail on the head! Without any assistance from the heavens, mind you!

Time to shake off this myth, dear friends. Even God deserves a break! Till how long will He be our punching bag?  Let us be mature enough to admit our own follies and be responsible for our own lives. If your marriage goes wrong, it is because YOU have failed in your part. If your alliance was wrong in the first place, YOUR guardians have been wrong in fixing it up! And always remember the golden rule of a successful marriage: NO EXPECTATIONS!!!!

A Mother Speaks!!

At every traffic signal, that rag-picker carrying a toddler on her hips tugs me at the heart. I immediately visualize my 1 year old in him. What if my Siyona…!!! Unconsciously, I shudder. “Don’t look at her!” my friend says. “She is able-bodied. Why can’t she earn a livelihood? Probably, this child is not even hers. You give alms to one means you are actually promoting child-kidnap rackets!”

Agreed, dear friend. I will not look at her. No, not because I have been listening to what you have been saying. But simply because I feel helpless. I can do nothing for that child struggling hard in the scorching sun. Barely clothed at all, his big eyes gleam with hope and fascination as he looks down at us from the other side of the window. Has he been kidnapped? Who are his parents? Where are they? Will he ever know what it means to rest in the mother’s lap? Does he deserve this? Maybe he is too young to worship You, dear God, but does that mean You can be so much unjust?

I wish I could help him. And others like him. Spread across in every nook and corner of the country. But alas, every time I save up, Siyona’s future comes in full view. And I invest in some mutual fund or the other. So, in short, I never seem to have enough!!

You, my boy, although I met you in the traffic signal, and silently wept at your condition, are silently forgotten as well. Once out of sight and the car has rolled over a couple of kilometers away from you, you are that tiny speck on a distant horizon, which everybody sees but nobody ponders upon. Life is too much about ‘ME’ and my daughter to think about you. Maybe next time, I will hand you over a 10-rupee note. But that’s it. Even if I have something extra to spare, why should I do it? It’s my hard earned money. Should I not spend it on my second Europe trip???

And besides, I am a mother. I have to fend for MY child! Why you? We have this universal figure called God. Blame Him. And, I am sure. Even He will not help you. Why?? Because even He has a family!! And so many more important assignments!! Probably, he doesn’t even know you exist!

So if I, and more mothers like me, spare some of their income towards the welfare of the likes of you, would we not be eradicating poverty to some extent? Would we not be improving the condition of our society? Why should we?? Politicians are there. Richer people are there. Let them do it. And as for the guilt of having excess for our children, we have done our part. By acting helpless and weeping over.